With 19 Days to Midterms, Georgia Is Rejecting Ballots Over Handwriting | American Civil Liberties Union

With 19 Days to Midterms, Georgia Is Rejecting Ballots Over Handwriting | American Civil Liberties Union

Early voting in Georgia for the 2018 general election just kicked off on Monday, but already the state has rejected close to 600 absentee ballots or applications for an absentee ballot.

One culprit?

State laws that require election officials to reject all absentee ballots and absentee ballot applications if they believe that signatures within the voter’s paperwork do not match each other.

The elections’ officials making these determinations do not have any formal education or training to analyze people’s handwriting, and are not given any unifying instructions on what should constitute a mismatch. It’s left entirely up to them, a layperson. Georgia does not notify voters before their ballots are rejected nor does it provide them an opportunity to contest the determination.